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NAZI

Austrian far-right figure resigns over ‘Nazi songbook’ scandal

An Austrian far-right figure at the centre of a scandal over a songbook praising the Holocaust has stepped down, blaming a "media witch-hunt".

Published: 1 February 2018 16:21 CET
Austrian far-right figure resigns over 'Nazi songbook' scandal
Udo Landbauer. Photo: AFP Photo/Dieter Nagl

Udo Landbauer, lead candidate for the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in elections in Lower Austrian state last Sunday, said he was giving up all political functions including as a local deputy.

Landbauer, 31, who was also head of the FPÖ's youth wing the RFJ, said he had been trying for days to refute all accusations against him.

But with his local party branch “under siege”, Landbauer he said he was giving in to a “media witch-hunt” in order to “take my family out of the firing line”.

He also suspended his membership of the FPÖ, which since December has been part of Austria's ruling coalition, and said he was going on holiday, the Austria Press Agency reported.

Last week the Falter weekly reported theat Landbauer's student fraternity had produced a song book in 1997 that included lyrics such as “Step on the gas… we can make it to seven million”.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust during World War Two, many of them in gas chambers at industrial-scale extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Several leading members of the FPÖ – a party created by former Nazis in the 1950s – belong to student fraternities, some of which believe in a “Greater Germany” to include Austria.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, under pressure over the furore, said on Wednesday that his government would initiate proceedings to dissolve the fraternity Germania zu Wiener Neustadt.

The FPÖ says the fraternities are harmless, with its leader Heinz-Christian Strache saying on Friday that “anti-Semitism, totalitarianism (and) racism are the opposite of fraternity thinking”.

Landbauer, who was 11 years old when the book was printed, has said that he was unaware of the offending text until last week. He suspended his membership after the Falter report.

The affair also embarrassed the centre-left Social Democrats (SPÖ) after it emerged that a party member – one of four people under investigation by prosecutors – had illustrated the song book.

Harald Vilimsky, FPÖ general secretary, said that the “irreproachable and upstanding” Landbauer was the “innocent” victim of a “political and media frenzy”.

POLITICS

The imam and rabbi’s friendship that defies stereotypes in Austria

More than 150 students crowded into a room at an Austrian high school to hear an unlikely duo speak -- imam Ramazan Demir and rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister.

Published: 29 February 2024 09:52 CET
The imam and rabbi's friendship that defies stereotypes in Austria

The two men’s talks, educating students about their religions, have taken on additional pertinence since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent relentless bombing of Gaza.

Since then Austria has seen a rise in both anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim acts, as elsewhere in Europe.

“We must separate religion from politics,” rabbi Hofmeister, 48, told the students, while imam Demir, 38, nodded in support. “This is not a religious war, it is a political conflict, a terrible conflict that must not impact our communities here in Europe,” Hofmeister added.

The two volunteers are in high demand because “just our friendship alone defies stereotypes”, according to Demir. Their diaries are packed until June, with the pair visiting some 30 Austrian schools.

During last week’s two-hour discussion at a high school in a working-class suburb of the capital, questions came thick and fast from the students aged 16 to 18.

A livestream allowed those unable to get a seat in the large hall to hear them explain how Jews and Muslims pray to the differences between kosher and halal.

The two men’s talks, educating students about their religions, have taken on additional pertinence since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent relentless bombing of Gaza. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP)

Talk on ‘equal footing’ 

The two bearded men — one wearing a kufi cap, the other a wide-brimmed fedora hat — met 10 years ago during an inter-religious project and have since worked together, travelling to Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The Gaza war has not affected their friendship, they say.

“We want there to be peace, without any ifs and whens,” Demir said, while Hofmeister added that he was “glad they started to cooperate so early on to be able to address the current crisis.”

The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. But concern has mounted amid the high civilian death toll from Israel’s retaliatory campaign, now at almost 30,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The Vienna school where the pair were speaking has 1,200 students of 63 different nationalities, although none identify as Jewish.

At each break, numerous students crowd around the duo, who use humour to lighten the atmosphere.

“It’s interesting to see how similar religions are,” 17-year-old Estella Dolas told AFP.

Austria is a majority Catholic country, with Muslims making up around 8 percent of the population. Only 0.1 percent — just 5,400 people — declared themselves as Jewish in the 2021 census.

School director Inge Joebstl, 55, said the rapport and respect between the two men, who spoke “on an equal footing”, made the students more receptive.

Especially since many of them will otherwise look for answers on social networks where “self-proclaimed experts converted two years ago explain to them what Islam is”, warned Demir.

“After we leave, the students may not remember everything we told them,” admitted Hofmeister. “But they will remember that an imam and a rabbi came to their school and that they got along well.”

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